1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a device for filling cigarette tubes with tobacco, and more particularly to a fully manual, partially automated or fully automated device for filling cigarette tubes with precisely metered amounts of tobacco that is packed to a selectable, uniform and adequate density that allows for an even burn at a selectable rate of burn on a consistent basis.
2. Description of the Relevant Prior Art
Cigarette tubes generally comprise a paper cylinder having an open end and a filter end. Various manual, semi-automatic and automatic machines exist in the market for allowing a user to fill such tubes with loose tobacco to make their own cigarettes.
A major problem associated with home-made cigarettes involves the lack of uniformity of and density of the pack of tobacco within the cigarette tube. At one extreme, in the absence of a dense and uniform packing of tobacco into the tube, the burning cigarette tip can fall off the cigarette, creating a fire hazard; less extreme problems such as uneven burning and die off of the burning tip and alteration of the smoking properties such as varying pull, taste and smoking periods of differing lengths can occur; even the levels of dangerous substances in self-filled cigarettes have been shown to be related to differing degrees of filling of the cigarette tubes.
A major shortcoming of many of the prior art models is that they lack means to deal with different cuts of tobacco, such as shag cut or bulk cut and they also do not provide means for dealing with tobaccos of varied moisture contents and the changed compression characteristics thereof.
The size of the particles of tobacco within a particular cut and batch of tobacco may vary considerably.
The most common means of determining the amount of tobacco needed for optimal filling of a series of cigarette tubes involves use of an algorhythm based on a predetermined number of strokes of a tobacco delivering means to the compression chamber of the device. However, because of the variation in particle size, and/or moisture content within a batch of tobacco, such methods lead to less consistent filling of the tubes, and, alteration of the smoking properties, which alterations smokers do not appreciate.
Some smokers prefer a cigarette requiring a “light” draw for smoking, such cigarettes need a lighter density of pack; other prefer a harder draw and for them, a denser pack is indicated.
The following patented devices, some manual and some semi automatic in nature, either depend upon the user's tactile sense in compressing the tobacco to form the pre-insertion cigarette rod; or, depend upon use of a predetermined loading amount of tobacco into a compression chamber to create the finished pre-insertion tobacco rod: U.S. Pat. No. 4,534,367 (Newsome-August 1985); U.S. Pat. No. 4,215,705 (Marcil-April 1991); U.S. Pat. No. 5,009,237 (Schmidt-April 1991); U.S. Pat. No. 5,666,975 (Lord-September 1997); U.S. Pat. No. 6,206,006 (Schutze-March 2001); U.S. Pat. No. 6,431,812 (Budny-August 2002); U.S. Pat. No. 6,484,867 (Spatafora-November 2002); U.S. Pat. No. 6,557,560 (Kastner-May 2003); U.S. Pat. No. 6,571,800 (Yu-June 2003); U.S. Pat. No. 6,739,343 (Trinkies-May 2004). U.S. Pat. No. 6,978,789 (Garbarino-December 2005); U.S. Pat. No. 7,537,013 (Nelson-May 2009); U.S. Pat. No. 7,565,818 (Thomas-July 2009); U.S. Pat. No. 7,597,105 (Barnes-October 2009);
The following five U.S. Patents have been chosen as representative of the above group and are subjected to a more detailed analysis.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,571,800 (Yu) is a portable hand filling device in which manual compression into the compression section is used to create the finished pre-insertion tobacco rod. 1. The obvious problem with Yu's device is that dependence on a user's tactile sense, while that user's hand is being used to forcefully compress the tobacco into a rod shape, is most likely not going to consistently create rods of uniform density of pack either within that rod, much less as between a successive series of rods. 2. Yu does not, as is mandated by MPEP 2143.5: 1. teach all the limitations of the current invention, nor does it; 2. provide any evidence establishing a motivation to use a dual-plate injection/compression/compression -monitoring assembly (“dual-plate assembly”) such as is taught in the current invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,551,095 (Chaze-May 1951) presents another example of a hand operated cigarette tube filling machine. The device includes a hopper (named as the “scraper” component), within which a flat bottomed “pusher” member, under activation of a pair of springs, creates a downward pressure on underlying tobacco fibers. Alternate rotation of the hopper/scraper right to left, incrementally forces tobacco to pass downward into a compression chamber (“gutter” component), wherein, manual pressure can be applied to drive a compression member forward, thus compressing the tobacco into a rod shape; manual activation of a push rod affixed longitudinally with an extraction spoon allows moving the compressed tobacco into a waiting cigarette tube.
Problems associated with Chaze' device: 1. Although Chaze Claims a metering component, Chaze', ending metering activity is based upon an algorhythm and does not include a dual-plate assembly structure such as is found in the current invention; hence Chaze does not, as is mandated by MPEP 2143.5: 1. teach all the limitations of the current invention; nor does it 2. provide any evidence establishing a motivation to use such a dual-plate assembly.
Another device, U.S. Pat. No. 4,572,216 (Josuttis-February 1986): Compression of the loose tobacco from the hopper into a rod suitable for loading into a cigarette tube is accomplished by passing the tobacco through a rotating tobacco-conveyor spring of increasingly narrower dimension, thus forming a continuous strand of compressed tobacco for injection into a waiting cigarette tube.
Problems associated with Josuttis' device include: 1. it is limited to use with fine fibered tobacco and is not suitable for use with other cuts of tobacco. 2. the tobacco conveyor spring taught is specific for tobacco tubes of specific wall thickness and diameter; if any other tube is used, the conveyer spring which is finely spaced in taper, wind spacing and pitch along its three section length must be replaced with another specially fabricated spring section. 3. Although Josuttis states that suitable tracer or sensor devices (not illustrated at all, much less illustrated in detail) can be used to register when the cigarette tube is completely filled, there is no provision of any manner of monitoring or regulating the actual state of compression of the finished tobacco rod before its removal to the cigarette tube. 4. And as opposed to the primary structural component of this invention, Josuttis teaches no moveably conjoined double-plate assembly component that is slideably reciprocating along its long axis as part of the insertion/compression operation. hence Josuttis does not, as is mandated by MPEP 2143.5: 1. teach all the limitations of the current invention; nor does it 2. provide any evidence establishing a motivation to use such a dual-plate assembly.
A more recent device, U.S. Pat. No. 6,739,343 (Trinkies-May 2004), comprises a funnel-shaped hopper having a bottom opening up through which projects a rotatable, toothed cylinder (plucking roller); the teeth grasp tobacco fibers in the hopper and move them down into a tobacco supply chamber. Compression of the tobacco into a rod is created by pushing a series of incremental tobacco loads from the supply chamber into the compression section; the supply chamber, in this device, the compression section, injection section and the empty cigarette tube are all in a longitudinal alignment along a common axis of movement with each other.
The number of rotations of the toothed cylinder needed to provide an adequate fill of the tube is determined experimentally, thus providing an algorithm that determines how much tobacco will be inserted into the compaction chamber.
Problems associated with Trinkie's device include: 1. It can only handle long-fiber filling tobacco. 2. Although adequate compression of the tobacco can be achieved based on a pre-determined number of compression strokes, there is no provision for accurately determining the actual density of each compressed tobacco rod and so inconsistencies of pack density will occur. 3. There is no provision of “fine tuning” the density of the individual cigarettes made from a tobacco of known dryness and cut to create a cigarette with a harder or lesser draw in accordance with a smoker's preferred draw characteristics. 4. As opposed to the primary structural component of this invention, Trinkies teaches a separate, tubular insertion member feeding tobacco along a central long axis of the tobacco roll to be formed, and teaches a separate, orthogonally placed compression member as part of the insertion/compression assembly and operation. 5. Trinkies does not, as is mandated by MPEP 2143.5: 1. teach all the limitations of the current invention; nor does it 2. provide any evidence establishing a motivation to use such a dual-plate assembly as is integral in the structure of the current invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,789,087 (Pham-September 2010) teaches a device with electrical, electronic and mechanical features, and includes automatic succession of sequential empty tubes from a hopper with a computer providing electronic control of the cigarette tube filling and packing apparatuses. j
Main Problems with the device are: 1. Unlike the current invention, Pham's device does not provide for monitoring each finished pre-injection cigarette-rod for optimal compression. 2. Rather, control of packing density is through an algorithm involving use of an experimentally determined number of up and down “shakes” of the hopper to move more or less tobacco into the compression chamber. The idea being that a fewer number of shake cycles may create a more loosely filled cigarette, and programming a higher number of “shakes” will load and compact the tobacco into loading chamber to form a more densely packed cigarette. 3. Pham does not, as is mandated by MPEP 2143.5: 1. teach all the limitations of the current invention; 2. nor does it provide any evidence establishing a motivation to use such a dual-plate assembly as is taught in the current invention.